RTS OS

The Linux SCSI Target Wiki

Jump to: navigation, search
RTS OS
Logo
RTS OS 2.0 120207b.png
RTS Unified Storage OS
Company / developer RisingTide Systems, Inc.
Programmed in C, C++, Python
OS family Unix-like
Working state Publicly released
Source model Open and closed source
Initial release July 1, 2010; 2 years ago (2010-07-01)
Latest stable release 3.0.1214 / December 14, 2012;
5 months ago (2012-12-14)
Marketing target Servers and storage arrays
Language(s) English
Update method RTS OS update
Package manager RPM package manager
Supported platforms IA-32 and x86-64
Kernel type Monolithic (Linux)
Userland GNU
Default user interface RTSadmin and YaST2
License Proprietary commercial software
Official website risingtidesystems.com

RTS OS is a single-node integrated storage operating system based on Linux and the standard Linux Unified Target, developed by RisingTide Systems (RTS), including support for Fibre Channel, FCoE, iSCSI, and SRP, and CIFS/SMB2 and NFS3/4, with iSER under development.

Contents

Configuration

To configure RTS OS, use the RTSadmin RTS OS shell. RTSadmin from RisingTide Systems provides a comprehensive configuration tool for storage arrays running RTS OS.

Download

Please contact RTS to obtain an RTS OS eval version, license or support:

Features

Cloning VMware VMs in 25s over 1 GbE on an RTS OS SAN with VAAI and Fusion-IO ioDrive PCIe flash memory.

Unified storage

Hardware support packages

HA Ready

High-Availability Readyness provides deep integration of the following key software:

Nagios (NRPE)

Nagios integration and plugins for monitoring, including:

OS services

Setup

RTS OS is a comprehensive, integrated single-node storage operating system. RTS provides three different RTS OS installation images:

RTS OS install ISO

RTS OS ISO installer: Selecting a new OS installation.
RTS OS ISO installer: Accepting the click-through license agreement.

This is a bootable DVD/CD ISO (natively or in a VM).

To use RTS OS ISO from physical media, burn it onto a writable CD or DVD and boot from it. To boot the RTS OS ISO in a virtual machine, create a new VM and point the installer disk file to the ISO.

Once the boot splash screen and menu is up, select "Install RTSos" (see picture on the right), optionally type in additional boot parameters or use <F4> to change the keyboard layout, and then follow the menus to install RTS OS onto your system (boot+root) partition (e.g. HDD, SSD, USB flash).

15 GB free space required
The minimum free space required for the install partition (boot+root) is 15 GB.
Install drive will be wiped!
Proceed with caution: The drive you select for installation (the RTS OS boot+root drive) will be erased by the RTS OS installer.

RTS OS raw

This is a full disk image for the boot+root drive, containing a valid disk layout, including the partition table with a 15 GB primary boot+root partition. Raw copy the image onto the new boot+root drive (e.g. with dd).

For instance, on a provisioning host, raw copy the RTS OS raw image onto /dev/sdb: 

rtsnode1:~ # dd if=RTSos.x86_64-2.12.902.raw of=/dev/sdb
2678784+0 records in
2678784+0 records out
1371537408 bytes (1.4 GB) copied, 56.7305 s, 24.2 MB/s
rtsnode1:~ # partx /dev/sdb
# 1:      2048-  2678783 (  2676736 sectors,   1370 MB)
# 2:         0-       -1 (        0 sectors,      0 MB)
# 3:         0-       -1 (        0 sectors,      0 MB)
# 4:         0-       -1 (        0 sectors,      0 MB)
rtsnode1:~ #

Remove the drive, install it in your array as boot drive, and boot from it. Upon the initial boot, RTS OS auto-provisions itself to your specific array hardware configuration. After RTS OS has completed the auto-provisioning process, it automatically reboots one more time to launch the live RTS OS instance.

For instance, the layout of a live RTS OS boot+root drive looks similar to: 

rtsnode1:~ # partx /dev/sda
# 1:      2048- 31471334 ( 31469287 sectors,  16112 MB)
# 2:  31471336- 47343555 ( 15872220 sectors,   8126 MB)
rtsnode1:~ #

RTS OS update ISO

This is a DVD/CD ISO that contains all packages to perform offline updates of RTS OS to the current up-to-date revision from RTS OS versions 2.12.320 and later. To use the RTS OS update ISO from physical media, burn it onto a writable CD or DVD, mount it, and run rts-iso-upgrade from it.

For instance, RTS OS updates from /dev/sr0 can be performed as follows: 

rtsnode1:~ # mount /dev/sr0 /mnt
rtsnode1:~ # /mnt/rts-iso-upgrade
rtsnode1:~ #
Automatic reboot
After the RTS OS update has completed, the system will automatically reboot.

Login

RTS OS iSCSI target setup with 4 LUNs.

Once RTS OS is up and running, login as follows:

Then start the pre-installed rtsadmin and use it to configure the storage on your array (see on the right).

Change the root password!
Please change the standard RTS root password immediately after your first login.

Crashkernel

RTS OS version 2.12.1012 and later use kexec to quick-boot into a dump-capture kernel in case RTS needs a live kernel memory image for advanced defect analysis (e.g., after a kernel “panic”). RTS OS is configured to automatically preserve the captured kernel image and then reboot into a new RTS OS instance.

The captured live RTS OS kernel image with its full memory dump and system map is then available in /var/crash/<timestamp>. Please provide the contents of this directory upon request to RTS for further defect analysis .

RTS OS automatically activates the crashkernel feature by adding a crashkernel=<memory_size> parameter to its kernel boot switches, which depends on the amount of memory installed in the array.

For a typical RTS OS installation, the kernel boot switches for the production RTS OS entries in the GRUB menu file at /boot/grub/menu.lst look like this: 

timeout 4
gfxmenu (hd0,0)/boot/message
title RisingTide_OS_(RTSos)
 kernel (hd0,0)/boot/vmlinuz-3.0.38-0.5-default root=/dev/sda1 disk=/dev/sda vga=0x314
 splash=silent resume=/dev/sda2 quiet quiet showopts crashkernel=128M
[...]

The table below depicts the <memory_size> parameter depending the amount of RAM installed in the array:

Installed RAM memory_size
0–12 GB 128M
13–48 GB 256M
49–128 GB 512M
129–256 GB 1G

For more information, please also see the kdump documentation.[1]

Documentation

For further documentation on how to configure and manage RTS OS based storage arrays, please see:

The full set of detailed documentation is available with an RTS OS subscription.

Repositories

Subscriptions

RTS OS subscriptions
RTS provides access to its comprehensive RTS OS package repository and update service after activating an RTS OS subscription.

RTS OS subscriptions are available in the US for $950.00 per node per year; please inquire for other regions.

Packages

The following RTS OS packages are available with an active RTS OS subscription:

Name Description
RTS-11.2-core RTS OS "core" channel: All packages for system base (minimum platform).
RTSos-11.2-base RTS OS "base" channel: All packages available per default.
RTSos-11.2-iso RTS OS "base" ISO: Some basic packages are not included in "core" or "base". This is a placeholder for future updates of the operating system platform.
RTSos-11.2-RTS RTS OS: All packages that are specific and special to the RTS SAN/storage, e.g.:
  • The LSI MegaRAID Manager (MSM)
  • The full HP SNMP management tool suite
  • A sensors and alert package (sensors, libsensors, kernel-modul-package)
RTSos-11.2-hae RTS HAE (High Availability Extension): Including Corosync, DRBD, etc.
RTSos-11.2-pbis PowerBroker Identity Services Repository: Seamless Active Director Services integration with Samba that provides fast Windows domain-joins for Unified Storage setups.
RTSos-11.2-sdk RTS SDK: The full Linux development tool chain (e.g., gcc, make, etc.).
RTSos-11.2-update Updates: The primary update channel for packages not in "hae" or "sdk" (kernel, etc.).

Technology previews

The RTS OS ISO/raw images include the next-generation version of the Unified Target as a technology preview. Per default, however, RTS OS uses the production version of the Unified Target.

To use the next-generation version of the Unified Target ('LIO NG'), follow these steps:

  1. Stop the live target: service target stop
  2. Install the next-generation target: zypper in lio-ng-kmp-default
  3. Quiesce the live target: rts-unload
  4. Start the new target: service target start

To use the production version of the Unified Target ('LIO stable'), follow these steps:

  1. Stop the live target: service target stop
  2. Install the production target: zypper in lio-core-backport-kmp-default
  3. Quiesce the live target: rts-unload
  4. Start the new target: service target start

Sandy Bridge errata

Some Sandy Bridge motherboards that are non-Intel reference boards (e.g., the Supermicro X9 series) have problems with ACPI, which manifest themselves in long-term stability issues under heavy load.[2]

Brute force workaround

To placate these problems, add the following boot switches to the RTS OS boot command line:[3] 

pci=noacpi acpi=off

The corresponding production GRUB menu entry in /boot/grub/menu.lst should look like: 

timeout 4
gfxmenu (hd0,0)/boot/message
title RisingTide_OS_(RTSos)
 kernel (hd0,0)/boot/vmlinuz-3.0.38-0.5-default root=/dev/sda1 disk=/dev/sda vga=0x314
 splash=silent resume=/dev/sda2 quiet quiet showopts pci=noacpi acpi=off
[...]
Performance impact
The boot switches pci=noacpi and acpi=off disable ACPI functionality, which limits the multiprocessing capabilities of the array and thus can have a significant adverse effect on power consumption.

Experimental workaround

The problem can usually resolved less intrusively by adding the following boot switches to the RTS OS boot command line: 

acpi=noirq i915.semaphores=1 i915.i915_enable_rc6=1 pcie_aspm=force

These boot switches have the following effects, respectively:

System instability
If pcie_aspm=force is set, hardware that doesn't support ASPM can cause the system to become unstable and/or unresponsive. Therefore, before setting pcie_aspm=force, ensure that all PCIe hardware installed in the array supports ASPM.

Contact

Please contact:

Please see Support for more infirmation.

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Vivek Goyal (2012-09-02). "Documentation for Kdump - The kexec-based Crash Dumping Solution". kernel.org. 
  2. ↑ "Common kernel problems". fedoraproject.org. 2012-09-22. 
  3. ↑ Greg Kroah-Hartman (12/2006). "Kernel boot command-line parameter reference". Linux Kernel in a Nutshell. O'Reilly Media. ISBN 978-0-596-10079-7. 
  4. ↑ "Intel 2011Q4 graphics package". intellinuxgraphics.org. 2011-12. 
  5. ↑ "Intel 2011Q4 graphics package". access.redhat.com. 2012-05. 

External links

Retrieved from "http://www.linux-iscsi.org/wiki/RTS_OS"
Personal tools
Namespaces
Variants
Actions
Navigation
Toolbox
Google AdSense